SPORTS DIGEST

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Mayor Kevin Johnson, business leaders and fans have done all they could in the past few months to prevent the Sacramento Kings from relocating to Anaheim.

The final and perhaps most critical step came Tuesday, when the corporate community handed NBA representatives deposits on more than $10 million in sponsorship pledges for the Kings to stay at least another year.

The NBA relocation committee headed by Clay Bennett — who moved the Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City three years ago as owner — will issue a final report to Commissioner David Stern later this week. Then Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof will finally decide the franchise's fate.

The Maloofs have until Monday to file a relocation request to the league, which fellow owners would have to approve by a majority vote. The Maloofs remain undecided.

Report: Schools distort numbers to meet Title IX

Many Division I schools are distorting the number of students participating in sports so they can comply with Title IX, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Among the tactics is to pad rosters of women's teams with unqualified players or even men.

The newspaper found schools counted athletes who no longer wanted to compete or never played for that team, listing male practice players as women and trimming the rosters of men's teams.

The Times analyzed public records from more than 20 colleges and universities and federal participation statistics from all 345 institutions at the NCAA's highest level.

National champion Texas A&M and Duke are among the elite women's basketball teams that take advantage of a federal loophole that allows them to report male practice players as female participants, the report said.

Passed in 1972, Title IX is a federal law that bans sex discrimination in schools and opened academic and sports opportunities for women.

Group looks into possibility of bringing Olympics to Tahoe

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A group of California business and political leaders has formed an exploratory committee to look into bringing the Winter Olympics to the state.

The California Winter Games Committee will work to determine the feasibility of hosting the games in the Lake Tahoe region and other parts of the state. The group will work with Nevada's Reno-Tahoe Winter Games Coalition on a unified effort to bring the Olympics to the Lake Tahoe region.

The earliest Olympics the group could bid for would be the 2022 Olympics.